Educators to discuss financing, test

ENRIQUE RANGEL

Sunday

Jan 29, 2012 at 10:21 PM

AUSTIN — School funding, a new test debuting this spring and other public education issues should get plenty of attention this week.

More than 4,000 superintendents, administrators and members of the board of trustees in the more than 1,000 school districts in the state are expected to attend the midwinter conference of the Texas Association of School Administrators.

Although this is an annual event, when the Texas Legislature is not in session there are times the conference gets little outside attention. But this time promises to be different because, with four school-funding lawsuits against the state already filed in an Austin court and growing concerns about the new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Remedies test, public education is already shaping up as a pivotal issue for next year’s legislative session.

“This year, the complexity of the school finance debate makes it even more crucial that we further unite our thoughts and efforts on behalf of our public schools,” Association president Rod Townsend and executive director Johnny Veselka wrote in their welcoming remarks.

For Anette Carlisle, president of the Amarillo Independent School District board of trustees, the school-funding lawsuits, the new test — better known by its acronym STAAR — and other critical issues the schools are dealing with must be fully addressed during the four-day conference.

“We need to because the Legislature has to get serious about funding the schools,” said Carlisle, a longtime critic of the school-funding formulas. “What we need are long-term, workable solutions, not just another Band-Aid like they’ve been doing for years.”

And STAAR also should get an in-depth look because there is a growing concern about its 15 percent rule on the end-of-course test, which replaces the much-maligned standardized TAKS test, Carlisle said. The rule requires the test to account for 15 percent of a student’s final course grade.

“I think the 15 percent rule is inappropriate,” she said. “I think it is totally ineffective.”

James Arnold, president of the Lubbock Independent School District board of trustees, said though he won’t attend the conference, he also hopes the school-funding litigation, the implementation of the STAAR test and other critical issues are fully addressed.

“We would like to see some movement on the test,” Arnold said. “I wish they (the Legislature) would give us some more local control as to how the test is going to be administered and how the grades will be tallied.”

The same goes for the school-funding litigation.

“I just think the system is broken and it needs to be fixed,” Arnold said of the funding formulas which give some school districts as much as $12,000 a year per student while others like Lubbock ISD and Amarillo ISD get less than $5,000 a year per student.

“We all agree that there is not enough money,” Arnold said in reference to the $27-billion budget shortfall the Legislature faced in last year’s session and a projected gap of as much as $15 billion expected in the 2013 session. “But we need to see a more equitable funding system.”

Lawmakers from the Panhandle/South Plains region said they welcome the discussion of these educational issues long before next year’s session starts.

“This is where we need to be focusing because there are many inequities in the school districts, and we need to have an honest discussion as to how we can remedy that,” Price said. “So, this is a critical time to have this discussion because you don’t want to wait until the session starts.”

Some of Price’s colleagues see it the same way.

“If we want to make changes, the 2013 session will be a good time to do it and now is a good time to talk about it,” said Sen. Kel Seliger, a member of the Senate Education Committee, in reference to the STAAR test, a mandate the Legislature ordered in Senate Bill 1031, which he co-authored in the 2007 session.

The Legislature also has started addressing those concerns, Seliger, R-Amarillo, said in reference to the interim charges, assignments the speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor ask the lawmakers to focus on the year before the session starts.

Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, said it is precisely because of serious concerns about the STAAR test his 11-member panel has already started hearings on how the testing is expected to work.

And the same goes for the school-funding litigation.

He and his colleagues need to hear from all stakeholders “so that we can make informed decisions,” Eissler said at a recent forum on legislative issues hosted by the Austin think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.